A "potentially hazardous" asteroid bigger than a skyscraper reaches Earth next week

[wiyosaya]

What I meant was the future of the program. I would love to know about future plans.

I know about the past success, and future studies planned, but since the impact and those results, it's like we don't hear about it anymore.

We've got more important things than to worry about what an asteroid might do to us and how to prevent it - such as - what Trump kept at Mar-a-lago, how Biden fell after his Air Force Commencement speech the other day, how many men dress in drag, you know, important stuff like that rather than asteroids which would amount to more explosive power than all the bombs on Earth. Asteroids are hardly even newsworthy.
/s

 

[PEnnn]

Can we get one to hit NYC, Chicago, San Fran, Portland & Seattle?
Might solve about 75% of the USA's problems. <G>

And should it do that, it will leave a country with nothing but neanderthals roaming around...asking for guvment help.

 

[WhiteLeaff]

Let's take it easy on click bait...
"blasting toward Earth "

 

[Gray Brendle]

"...will come as close as 19.2 million miles to Earth, or about eight times the average distance of the moon, just before 9 pm EDT on June 12."

The Moon is ≈247,000 miles from Earth. 19.2 million miles would be more than 76 times the average distance of the Moon to the Earth.

 

[wiyosaya]

Let's take it easy on click bait...
"blasting toward Earth "

Good point. It is, actually, only in an orbit that is taking it relatively farther away from Earth than, say, that one not too long ago that ended up coming inside the orbit of geosynchronous satellites. That its in an orbit is somewhat of an oxymoron to say it is "blasting toward Earth." There's no acceleration involved (unless its orbit is close enough to Earth or something large enough to make it accelerate), so how can it be "blasting"?

 

[wiyosaya]

Try catch some of the 98% of the frozen debris that will break off on its entrance into the atmosphere, so when it hits the surface its just a car size, keep it in your house and melt it down make super computers from it... "Sci-Fi"

Well, there is also the new "Gotham Knights" take - it will heal all your ills and make you immortal, but if you don't dilute it first, it will kill you from radiation poisoning.

 

[wiyosaya]

It is already tested and more or less in place:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/...steroid-in-first-ever-planetary-defense-test/
"The investigation team will now observe Dimorphos using ground-based telescopes to confirm that DART’s impact altered the asteroid’s orbit around Didymos. Researchers expect the impact to shorten Dimorphos’ orbit by about 1%, or roughly 10 minutes; precisely measuring how much the asteroid was deflected is one of the primary purposes of the full-scale test."
Unless there will be some not traced asteroid somehow going to Earth with too short warning time, we are already able to protect ourselves. Any 'near miss' is fine, no reason to waste resources, we can predict the trajectory well enough.

What they don't know is how effective something like that would be against all asteroids. If its far enough away and they are able to alter the orbit enough, it could work. But if the asteroid is a collection of smaller debris, the "solution" might be worse than the cure.

 

[WCravens]

One pesky detail... passing at a distance of 19.2 million miles will put this object at EIGHTY times the Earth-Moon distance. Not "eight times".

If that is the estimated distance of nearest approach, then the odds of it hitting us are probably very low.

 

[scavengerspc]

One pesky detail... passing at a distance of 19.2 million miles will put this object at EIGHTY times the Earth-Moon distance. Not "eight times".

If that is the estimated distance of nearest approach, then the odds of it hitting us are probably very low.

True but at least we are being told. Thats a plus.

 

[AxelAminoff]

" 1,214 to 2,723 feet in diameter and is traveling at 77,301 kilometers per hour (48,032 mph)."
could you, like, decide on the unit and then stick to it, and preferably if you must measure in feets, fingers, ears or whatever provide as well metric values?

for other readers:
" It is estimated to be approximately 370 to 830 meters (1,214 to 2,723 feet) in diameter. In comparison, New York's Empire State Building is 443.2 meters (1,454 feet) tall. It is expected to come within 3.1 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) of Earth on June 12, 2023" (hothardware.com)

" 1,214 to 2,723 feet in diameter and is traveling at 77,301 kilometers per hour (48,032 mph)."
could you, like, decide on the unit and then stick to it, and preferably if you must measure in feets, fingers, ears or whatever provide as well metric values?

for other readers:
" It is estimated to be approximately 370 to 830 meters (1,214 to 2,723 feet) in diameter. In comparison, New York's Empire State Building is 443.2 meters (1,454 feet) tall. It is expected to come within 3.1 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) of Earth on June 12, 2023" (hothardware.com)

I use the browser plugin "Everything Metric - Auto Unit Converter" which shows metric in [brackets] after miles and other measurements on web pages. The whole world uses metric, like WTF USA?

 

[erickmendes]

First ufos and now this

I came here for hardware

not national geographic

Nand was a present from our interdimensional god Cthulhu. He is also working on HBM 5.0

 

[wizardB]

Lol, I guess I'm the opposite. I came here for the alien stuff

New Yorkers are alien.

 

[Blqckout]

Nand was a present from our interdimensional god Cthulhu. He is also working on HBM 5.0

ill pretend like I know what that means

 

[LandroverS1]

" 1,214 to 2,723 feet in diameter and is traveling at 77,301 kilometers per hour (48,032 mph)."
could you, like, decide on the unit and then stick to it, and preferably if you must measure in feets, fingers, ears or whatever provide as well metric values?

for other readers:
" It is estimated to be approximately 370 to 830 meters (1,214 to 2,723 feet) in diameter. In comparison, New York's Empire State Building is 443.2 meters (1,454 feet) tall. It is expected to come within 3.1 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) of Earth on June 12, 2023" (hothardware.com)

I prefer the unit of feet, most people have them, as a retired professional Builder, I have paced out many a building using my size 10's. No complaints so far !